1625: Earliest documented attack by Barbary pirates, believed to be from Morocco, on merchant ships with home ports in North American colonies.
1645: Seamen from Cambridge, Massachusetts, repel an assault from Algerians.
1678: Algerian pirates seize 14 ships from American colonies (one from Massachusetts, 13 from Virginia)
September 1783: Algerian pirates harass American ships on their way home from peace negotiations with Britain. Americans allege that Britain is secretly paying the pirates to attack Americans.
October 1784: The Betsy, a 300-ton ship from Boston, is attacked 100 miles from Africa's western coast, in the Atlantic. The ship's sailors are captured, chained and carted off to slave markets in Morocco.
January 1785: The Dauphin and the Maria are captured by Algerians, their 21 crewmen chained and paraded before jeering crowds on their way to the Algerian leader, or dey, who reportedly spits on them and says, "Now I have got you, you Christian dogs, you shall eat stones."
March 4, 1789: The U.S. Constitution is adopted. Driven by the founders' realization that a stronger central government with the power to raise a national military was necessary, it was in part inspired by the need to respond more effectively to the Barbary wars. "In an indirect sense," wrote the historian Thomas Bailey, "the brutal Dey of Algiers was a Founding Father of the Constitution."
December 1790: Thomas Jefferson, as George Washington's Secretary of State, recommends that Congress declare war on the pirates. The Senate rejects the call, earmarking $140,000 instead for ransom payments.
March 27, 1794: President George Washington signs a bill authorizing $688,888.82 to build six frigates "adequate for the protection of the commerce of the United States against Algerian corsairs." The Barrbary pirates, in other words, had led to the birth of the U.S. Navy.
September 1800: The frigate George Washington, commanded by William Bainbridge, becomes the first U.S. Navy ship to enter the Mediterranean when it is ordered to go to Algiers with $500,000 worth of tribute for the Dey of Algiers. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the Navy's Sixth Fleet would be permanently posted in the Mediterranean.
May 14, 1801: Following a decision by President Thomas Jefferson no longer to give in to piracy and to provoke a war, the Dey of Tripoli orders the American consular flagstaff to be cut down, signaling a declaration of war, when his demand for more money is refused. He had had received $83,000 in tribute in three-and-a-half years. Without waiting for Congressional action, Jefferson dispatches four warships to the Middle East, later expanded to six.
Feb. 6, 1802: Congress passes the Act for Protection of Commerce and Seamen of the United States Against Tripolitan Corsairs. It is, essentially, a declaration of war.
Oct. 31, 1803: The 307 sailors aboard the warship Philadelphia, captained by William Bainbridge, is forced to surrender after the ship founders on a reef close to Tripoli. The ship becomes part of Tripoli's navy as The Gift of Allah.
Feb. 16, 1804: Stephen Decatur and 67 volunteers aboard the USS Intrepid daringly attack the former Philadelphia as it anchors in Tripoli harbor and set it ablaze. Britain's Lord Nelson calls the raid "the most bold and daring act of the age" while Pope Pius VII credits the U.S. Navy for doing "more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christendom have done for ages."
May 1804: William Eaton, a bigot and corrupt consul to Tunis during the Jefferson administration, is appointed U.S. agent to the Barbary States.
April 25, 1804: With a motley force of mercenaries, William Eaton, acting without formal U.S. government authority, begins a military campaign against Barbary regimes by demanding the surrender of Darna, the second-largest port after Tripoli. Thomas Jefferson opposes regime change by force and appoints a negotiator instead, Tobias Lear. Eaton is forced to withdraw from Darna under cover of darkness.
February 1809: Taking advantage of increasing tension between Britain and the United States, which forced the reduction of U.S. Navy ships patrolling the Mediterranean, the Dey of Algiers sacks the Sally and enslaves 15 crew members. More attacks followed.
April 1815: Hostilities with Britain over, Congress declares war on the Barbary power,s at President Madison's urging.
May 15, 1815: Stephen Decatur leaves New York, heading a military expedition against the Barbary powers.
June 28, 1815: Decatur's armada is in sight of Tripoli. He begins his campaign, advancing on to Tunis and defeating the Barbary powers decisively for the first time in 30 years.
Dec. 15, 1815: In his State of the Union message to Congress, President Madison declares the Barbary wars over.
